Contents

History

Origin

"Martinique" was hired by Arcade to frame Wolverine for some serial murders in London. One of the victims was Alexandra Davies, an old acquaintance of Gambit's. Gambit flew out to London to investigate her murder, and was led right to Wolverine, who had somehow been brought to London unawares. The two almost killed each other during Martinique's mental manipulations, but eventually realized that Logan was innocent and was being framed. Mastermind got suspicious of Arcade's motives, and forced him to reveal the truth - that he and his partner Ms. Locke were playing their usual game of "Try to Kill Me" for Arcade's birthday when Locke cut his face.

Arcade lost control and stabbed Locke to death. He had called in Mastermind because he had convinced himself that Wolverine had murdered his partner, and he wanted revenge. Martinique was disgusted at having been used in this horrible charade and implanted a recurring waking nightmare in Arcade's mind in which he was the elevator conductor in an elevator full of Ms. Lockes.[5]

She was captured and incarcerated, held in a comatose state inside a virtual reality helmet. Weeks later, she was brought into the X-Corps by the Multiple Men, who broke her out of her prison. Banshee, head of the X-Corps, drugged Martinique and put her in a tank with a machine that made her broadcast pain telepathically every time one of the former villains in the X-Corps tried to disobey orders or act aggressively.[7]

However, the X-Corps was infiltrated by Mystique, who somehow communicated with Mastermind and got her to agree to betray the X-Corps. In the interim, she was found by Chamber, who had come to investigate with his fellow X-Men, and psi-blasted him out of her head after walking him through some strange thoughts. Soon afterwards, Mystique shut down the machine and freed Martinique.[8]

After M-Day Martinique retained her powers, but not her memories. According to Cyclops, she wasn't seen since M-Day. She was able to alter reality and believed herself to be in the 60's thus returning San Francisco to that period of time, and all the people in it. But her activities caught the attention of Emma Frost and Cyclops.

Emma tried to locate the source, forcing Martinique to send the cops after them and then their fellow X-Men. Emma was able to break through her mental barriers to dispel the mental illusion but someone helped Martinique to escape.[9]

Imprisoned

Martinique ended up in the Pace Federal Penitentiary, and her power was absorbed by Hope Summers when she came to briefly visit Purple Woman, only for her to absorb their manipulation powers to apply them on the Avengers.[12]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Telepathic Illusions: Mastermind can project sophisticated illusions that are indistinguishable from reality. However, she also has the added ability of low-level telepathy, which she uses to glean information from her victims to make the illusions even more realistic. She can also project the illusion directly into a person's mind. Her power's range is unknown, although it is likely the size of a large city.